By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Timely hitting, and mistake-free baseball, was the difference in Tuesday evening’s Hoosier Heritage Conference matchup between New Palestine and Greenfield-Central.
The Dragons were able to accomplish both, while the Cougars fell short in both departments.
At Greenfield-Central’s Molinder Field, the Dragons won the battle between the Hancock County and HHC rivals 13-1.
“I’m ecstatic, but unfortunately we have to play them again (Wednesday). (Today’s) going to be a different ball game,” New Palestine head coach Shawn Lyons said. “We’re right there, though. We’re getting better, and we’re getting more confident. Greenfield’s a really good team. They’re well-coached, and they’ll be gunning for us (today). But I think our kids are just getting more comfortable with varsity experience, which a lot of them didn’t have.”
Clutch hitting by the Dragons gave them an early lead before a nine-run sixth inning broke things wide open.
Against relief pitcher Andrew Zellers, two bunt singles sparked the New Palestine offense, before mistakes by the Cougars allowed the Dragons to pull away.
Bunt singles by Adam Rickey and Nic Deering, and a hit-by-pitch, set up Blaine Nunnally for the first RBI of the inning on a sacrifice fly to the left field wall.
With two outs, the Dragons went on to score eight more runs.
“We put pressure on them with our bunt game, and our execution. We stole some bases, had clutch hits with two outs,” Lyons said. “They helped us a little with a few errors, but our bunt game was outstanding. We got a few hits on bunts and then had some clutch hits to follow those up.”
Two walks by Zellers brought in another run, before a G-C error off the bat of Ben Hirschy led to two more. Rickey’s second single of the inning allowed two more New Palestine runs to cross the plate, and the final three runs in the inning came on errors — a dropped fly ball and a passed ball.
“We just don’t have enough command on the mound, and you’ve just got to be able to make a play to stop the bleeding,” Greenfield-Central head coach Mark Vail said. “We just didn’t do that.”
The Dragons grabbed an early 2-0 lead in the second inning on another clutch hit, a Deering two-out, two-run double, and then added runs in both the third and fifth prior to the big sixth inning.
Wes Stiller launched his team-leading second home run of the year to lead off the third, and drove in the fifth-inning run on a sacrifice.
While the Dragons made things happen at the plate when needed, the Cougars struggled to find a clutch hit.
A.J Oden drove in the lone Greenfield-Central run with a single in the second inning, but with two runners on and just one out following his hit, New Palestine’s starting pitcher, Nunnally, struck out the next two batters.
In the third, the Cougars left Zellers on second base after a two-out double, and in the fifth got the first two batters on base before a ground out to third, pick-off at first base and pop out to Nunnally ended the threat.
“Through the first five innings, they got hits when they needed them and we didn’t. We put people on but couldn’t get hits when it mattered, and they put people on and then got hits,” Vail said. “That was the difference in the game. You get a couple hits early and knock in some runs, it’s a different ball game.”
Nunnally threw a complete game for the Dragons, allowing five hits, one run, and striking out seven.
“Nunnally’s always been a good pitcher. Every time he goes out, he’s good,” Vail said. “Lots of respect for him, and he’s done well against us.”
The outing was Nunnally’s first win of the season and second straight start allowing just one run over six innings of work.
“Blaine is getting more comfortable. He was behind to start the year because of basketball, so he didn’t really get to pitch too much, but he’s knocking the rust off,” Lyons said. “He had one tough inning, but made a good play defensively and picked a guy off to get out of things. We limited the big inning and that’s what we have to do, so Blaine did a nice job.”
Connor Sims got the start for Greenfield-Central, allowing four runs on five hits and three walks while striking out eight.
The two teams will play game 2 of the HHC series today, beginning at 6 p.m. at New Palestine.
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New Palestine 13, Greenfield-Central 1
New Palestine (9-5, 3-4);021;019; — ;13;8;0
Greenfield-Central (8-4-1, 5-2);010;000; — ;1;5;3
Blaine Nunnally and Wyatt Matheis. Connor Sims, Andrew Zellers (6), Lane Wadle (6) and Brodie Mayberry. 2B: NP – Ben Morwick, Nic Deering; G-C – Andrew Zellers. HR: NP – Wes Stiller (2). WP: Blaine Nunnally (1-1). LP: Connor Sims (1-1).
